Garlic Rosemary Bread

Remember a while back when I roasted a head of garlic and expressed my excitement about all the things I could do with it?! Well this is one of them! Rosemary and garlic go together so well, a rosemary garlic bread was just inevitable. It did not disappoint. My bread game is totally in its infancy and I don't have a super awesome-fool proof-delicious recipe yet. I used this Bread recipe for stand mixers from Food.com as my base and added fresh rosemary and soft roasted garlic cloves. I did half the recipe since the original makes quite a bit of bread.

I didn't measure the amount of rosemary I used, but I used one large branch and removed all the leaves from the woody stem. I roughly chopped them so they wouldn't become stabby.

Roasted garlic cloves removed from the paper.

Ok, so I used a garlic press to pulverize the cloves, but I could have just used the side of a knife. They were so soft and perfectly cooked. (tooting my own horn here...) I used about 5+ larger cloves.

All the dry ingredients mixed together in the bowl of my stand mixer.

Incorporated it doesn't look like there is much in there, but the flavors definitely come through.

The yeast happily mixing in some warmed filtered water.

Totally mixed in at this point.

Pour the yeast water mix into the dry ingredients and mix on speed 2 for about 2-3 minutes. Look for everything to be incorporated and the dough to look fairly smooth.

I shaped it and put it in a greased bowl. Don't skip the grease, it makes the dough so much easier to deal with.

I set it aside, covered and wrapped in a towel to rise. If you have a warm house, 75°F ish, you are good to go. But I don't. We keep ours at 65°F and love it that way. I'm not about to blast the heat for a loaf of bread, but my bread doesn't rise in this cold environment. I've paved my way to this discovery with numerous flat horrible loaves. I remedied this issue with a Hydrofarm Seedling Heat Mat. My kitty has a heating pad (or two), Nate and I have a heated blanket, why can't the bread have one! Also I fully intend to use this for soap gelling when I don't want to CPOP, future cheese making, AND what it's meant for- starting seedlings! That was totally enough projects to justify the heating pad and the very cool Digital Thermostat that lets you set the desired temperature. I put the probe straight into the bread dough and leave it alone. It gets nice and warm and the bread gets huge!

 Check it out!

After the first rise, punch it down, reshape and let it hang out per the directions. I have such a hard time shaping bread. After the second rise ideally you would put it in the oven and not lose the fluffy shape, but I always seem to! I turns into a pancake and I have to fold it back up and it gets quite dense. When I discover a fix for this problem, I'll follow up. Anyway, here is the loaf ready for the oven.

Hmm I thought I put bread in the oven, not chicken? Funny how the loaf above that looked so perfect turned all Quasimodo in the oven.

Ugly shape aside, this was so good!! We scarfed it in a day or so! I very much recommend messing with your bread and adding stuff. This is just the beginning for me!

It's also freaking fantastic with Fromager d'Affinois smeared all over it and eaten for lunch. Get creative!